Charlotte Button handed over her SOCA credentials to a bored uniformed sergeant. She flashed the man a smile, ‘I have a two o’clock appointment with Chief Superintendent Khan,’ she said.
The sergeant noted her details on a clipboard and handed back her ID card. ‘I’ll phone his office,’ he said. ‘Visitors have to be escorted upstairs, I’m afraid.’
‘Not a problem,’ said Button. She sat on an orange plastic chair and put her briefcase on the floor beside her. The waiting area smelled of stale sweat and there were grubby fingermarks on the walls. A poster offered an amnesty on all knives handed in before the end of the year. Another informed victims of domestic violence that they could phone the police for help. An old lady was standing at the counter, telling a young blonde policewoman that her next-door neighbour’s dog was barking all night and keeping her awake. Button wanted a cigarette so she took a stick of chewing-gum from her handbag to stifle the cravings. She looked for a bin to throw the wrapper in but there wasn’t one so she put it into her coat pocket. The old lady was crying now and dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
A door opened and a woman in her late twenties, wearing a dark skirt and blazer, smiled at Button. ‘Can you come with me, please?’ she asked, holding the door open. She handed Button a plastic tag with VISITOR on it and a bar code. Button clipped it to her coat. ‘You’re not carrying a weapon by any chance, are you?’ asked the woman.
‘Good Lord, no,’ said Button.
‘I’m sorry, I have to ask,’ said the woman. ‘We get all types in here, and everyone has to go through the security. Sorry.’ Button put her handbag and mobile phone on a conveyor belt that passed through an X-ray machine, followed the secretary through a metal detector, picked up her things, then walked to the lift. They went up to the sixth floor.
Khan had a corner office, as befitted his rank. The woman showed Button in straight away. He was wearing his uniform and stood up when he saw her. She had never met the chief superintendent but she had seen him on television many times, usually touted as one of the top Muslim police officers in the country. He was a big man with wide shoulders and a bulging stomach that strained at his jacket. His heavy jowls overhung his starched shirt collar. He strode round his desk, his arm outstretched, and his stubby fingers grasped Button’s hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming, Ms Button,’ he said.
Button smiled. ‘Charlotte, please,’ she said. Her eyes flashed across Khan’s desk. There was a framed photograph of the chief superintendent with his wife, son and daughter, a clear plastic in-tray filled with correspondence, a brass paperweight in the shape of a cat, and a large mug with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the side filled with pens. A computer terminal stood on a side table and on the wall behind it hung framed photographs of Khan meeting the great and the good – shaking hands with Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London; looking solemn with two bearded mullahs; with his arm around David Beckham; standing next to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police; sharing a podium with Tony Blair; and being presented with a certificate by an earnest-looking man in a dog-collar. By the door there were several framed certificates, including an honorary degree from Leeds University.
‘Please, sit down,’ said Khan. He showed Button to a black leather corner unit by the window. ‘Tea, coffee?’
‘Tea would be lovely,’ said Button, taking off her coat. ‘Anything but Earl Grey.’
The chief superintendent smiled at his secretary. ‘Iced tea, please, Anita,’ he said, and sat down as she left the office. ‘Have you been to Leicester before?’ he asked.
‘My first time,’ said Button. ‘It’s hardly a hotbed of crime.’
‘We have our moments,’ said Khan, ‘but I know what you mean. I doubt there are many villains on our patch that SOCA would consider targeting.’
‘But you have something for us now, I gather.’
‘Possibly,’ said Khan. ‘But I wanted to talk it through with you before making an official request for your undercover unit.’ He smiled but not with his eyes. ‘I was one of those who expressed reservations about SOCA when it was first mooted,’ he said. ‘There was a fear that you’d cherry-pick the high-profile cases and leave us under-resourced to cope with the rising levels of street crime.’
‘The powers-that-be saw us as a resource that all forces across the country could draw on,’ said Button.
‘A British FBI, they were calling it,’ said Khan, ‘and in the States there’s constant friction between the federal and state agencies.’
‘There’s a world of difference between the FBI and SOCA,’ she told him. ‘Funding for one.’
‘Policing is all about money,’ agreed Khan. ‘I’m more of a resource manager than a thief-catcher these days.’
‘Well, anything I can do to help.’
‘There’s something I’m not quite clear about. Where were you before you joined SOCA?’
‘MI5.’
Khan nodded thoughtfully. ‘And how is SOCA working out for you?’
‘It’s challenging,’ she said, ‘but I was never particularly deskbound during my time with Five. I ran agents and spent a lot of time in the field.’
‘Would I be right in saying you joined MI5 from university?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fast-track?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Nothing to be ashamed of,’ said Khan. ‘I was fast-tracked. The force wanted more ethnic minorities among its officers. I suppose MI5 needed more women.’
Button raised an eyebrow. ‘I prefer to think I was selected on merit,’ she said.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Khan, quickly, ‘but you know what I mean. Fast-tracking allows an organisation to be realigned where necessary.’
‘Actually, there are more women on the staff of MI5 than men, and the last two Director Generals have been women. The glass ceiling was broken in the intelligence services a long time ago.’
‘Well, we’ve still some way to go,’ said Khan. ‘So, tell me, what else did you do when you were with Five?’
‘I was in the National Security Advice Centre, working on serious crime investigations. After Nine Eleven I was moved to the International Counter-terrorism Branch, and when SOCA was formed, I was approached to head up the undercover unit.’
‘And you’re juggling a family as well as a career?’
Button frowned. ‘This is starting to feel like a job interview.’
Khan’s belly jiggled as he chuckled but his eyes were still hard. ‘I’m sorry if I appear to be prying, Charlotte. It’s just that I like to know who I’m dealing with, especially when the matter is somewhat sensitive.’ He waved at the photograph of his family on the desk. ‘Family means everything to me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve had to sacrifice a lot to get to where I am today.’
‘You have to make time,’ agreed Button. ‘I’m lucky, my husband is very supportive, and our daughter loves boarding-school. It’s not quite Hogwarts, but that whole Harry Potter thing has made it so much easier to send them away.’
‘Your husband also works for the intelligence services?’
Button shook her head. ‘He’s an estate agent. That’s how I met him. He sold me my first apartment. I don’t want to be rude, Chief Superintendent, but I have to be in Belfast this afternoon.’
‘A case?’
‘I’m running an operation there, yes. What is it you need doing?’
Khan opened his mouth to speak, but there was a knock at the door and Anita appeared with a tray. Khan waited until she had put it in front of him and left the room. ‘I have a problem, Charlotte. A very sensitive problem that will need a very sensitive touch.’ Khan leant forward. ‘Racism has always been a problem within the police, both in the way they deal with the public but also in the way they deal with each other. I believe, Charlotte, that several officers at the very top of this force are racist. And I need you to expose them.’
‘Racist in what way?’
‘In the worst possible way,’ said Khan. ‘Racist comments, blocking the promotion of officers from ethnic minorities, backpedalling on cases in which minorities are the victims.’
Button looked pained. ‘I’m sorry, Chief Superintendent, but that’s really not within my remit,’ she said. ‘We’re tasked with investigating major crimes, drugs, people-trafficking.’
‘Racism
is
a major crime,’ said Khan, sternly. ‘It’s something I take very seriously indeed.’
‘As do I, Chief Superintendent, but in order for me to commit resources, the case has to be within our remit.’
‘I need an officer to be under cover in our headquarters here. I can’t use anyone from our force, obviously, which is why I thought SOCA would be the ideal solution.’
‘Have you considered approaching the Met and asking them to second an officer?’
Khan sighed and sat back. ‘I had, but the nature of the investigation is such that there might be . . . ramifications. It might result in the dismissal of officers at a very senior level, and men like that have friendships that reach across geographical boundaries.’
‘I think what you’re suggesting is highly unlikely,’ said Button. ‘Police investigate their own all the time.’
‘But generally not at such a high level,’ said Khan. ‘Look, I understand your reservations about initiating such an investigation, but is there anything I can do to persuade you to help me?’
‘I don’t see how I can, Chief Superintendent. I’m sorry.’
Khan nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let me give it some more thought.’ He stood up and offered his hand. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, anyway. I’m sure you’ve a lot on your plate at the moment.’ He showed her to the door. As he held it open he raised a finger. ‘Oh, do you have a card with a direct line, just in case I need to pick your brains?’
‘I don’t work from an office,’ said Button. She reached into her bag and pulled out a purse. ‘But I have a mobile.’ She fished out a business card and handed it to him.
‘Good luck in Belfast,’ said Khan, and closed the door behind her.
Khan sat at his desk for the best part of an hour, staring blankly at a file in front of him. Eventually he sighed and stood up. He took his overcoat off the hook on the back of his door. ‘I’m heading out for a while, Anita,’ he said to his secretary.
‘Do you need your car?’ she asked.
‘I’ll walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back before three.’
Khan took the lift to the ground floor, went through the metal detector and out into the street. Half a dozen civilian workers were clustered around the entrance, smoking and chatting. He lit a cigarette and strode away from the building. He hated himself for what he was doing but he had no choice. Hassan knew where he lived and Khan had no doubt that he would wreak terrible vengeance on his family if he didn’t do what he wanted. He had thought long and hard after Hassan had approached him, considering his options late into the night as he drank endless cups of coffee and smoked his way through two packets of cigarettes. If he went to his bosses and told them what had happened they could put him under police protection. But what would that mean? For the rest of his life he and his family would be virtual prisoners. His children’s education would be ruined, his family would lose their friends, his career would stall. Everything he had worked for, all the sacrifices he had made, would have been for nothing.
There were two phone boxes a short walk from his office but he passed them, deep in thought. He cursed under his breath. He should have listened to his parents and become a doctor. They had always wanted him to study medicine, but even as a teenager he had known he wasn’t cut out to be a medic. He didn’t want to be around sick people, he wanted to catch criminals. He wanted the uniform, the squad cars and the comradeship. He’d studied law at university, but only because he knew that a law degree would get him on to the police fast-track promotion scheme. He’d made inspector within five years, superintendent five years later, and eventually even his parents had accepted that he’d made the right choice. He was doing well in a job he loved, and all the signs were that he was destined for even greater things. He knew he was already spoken of as the first Asian police commissioner, and all he had to do was keep climbing the slippery pole, seizing opportunities as they presented themselves and ensuring he didn’t make any stupid mistakes. He chose his public appearances carefully and had two tame journalists, both Asian, one on a redtop tabloid, the other on a worthy broadsheet, who could be relied on to write puff pieces as needed.
He had planned his career perfectly, he had forged useful friendships and distanced himself from anyone who might have held him back, and now it was all to be wrecked because of a man called Hassan. A man who would kill an innocent girl to gain power over another human being. Hassan was pure evil, and Khan knew that even a high-ranking police officer was powerless in the face of such a man. He had dealt with hundreds of criminals over the years – thieves, drug-dealers, conmen, thugs and murderers – but he had never been confronted before by a man like Hassan. Khan knew that if he didn’t do what Hassan wanted, he would kill Khan’s family. He was as sure of that as he was that there was nothing the police could do to protect them. There was no way to hide from a man like Hassan.
He reached another phone box and stopped, checked that no one he knew was around, then took Button’s business card from his wallet, pushed a pound coin into the slot and tapped out the number Hassan had given him. The phone went straight to voicemail.
Khan cleared his throat. He was about to cross a line, and once he had crossed it there would be no going back. He closed his eyes. Images of Sara being murdered flashed through his mind and he shuddered. He had to protect his wife and family. They were all that mattered. If others had to be sacrificed so that his family were safe, so be it. ‘She lives in Surrey,’ he said. He cleared his throat again. ‘She’s married with one child. The daughter is at boarding-school. Her husband is an estate agent, close to where they live. She’s working on a case at the moment in Belfast and will be back and forth between London and Northern Ireland over the next couple of weeks.’ Khan took a deep breath and exhaled through clenched teeth. ‘Her mobile number . . .’ He hesitated. Hassan hadn’t said why he wanted information about Charlotte Button, but Khan knew there could be only one reason. He wanted her dead. He said a silent prayer, but knew that wouldn’t help. He closed his eyes and continued to talk into the phone, his voice a hushed whisper.